George Orwell in "A Hanging" wrote(describing a man on death row walking to the site of execution):

"He walked clumsily with bound arms...And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I have never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive.

...He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing...the same world; and in two minutes, one of us would be gone--one mind less, one world less."